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Wavemaker II
Mary Beth Hughes. Grove Press: 2003 (paperback). ISBN: 0802139825. 208 pages.
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In just 200 terse pages, Mary Beth Hughes knocks this novel clean out of the park. We don't think we've ever seen a writer pack this much talent, pathos, and intrigue into so few pages. The setting is summer, New York, 1964. Ambitious family man Will Clemens takes one for the team, refusing to rat out fast-talking lawyer Roy Cohn, and is rewarded with a term in prison. Will's arrest leaves a trail of chaos in its wake, as the members of his family struggle frantically to adjust to this unforeseen disaster.
Will's wife Kay is left alone to keep a vigil at the hospital as their desperately sick little boy fights the battle against an unfamiliar disease, while poor sick Bo's sister Lou-Lou is left in the lurch to fight all battles all by herself, shunted to and fro between various neighbors and friends who stand in as caretakers. Hughes shifts back and forth between the perspectives of each of the family members with a dizzying ease and grace; it is astounding just how quickly she gets us to care about these characters, how aptly she paints a portrait of a personality in a few simple words, all the while hinting at the depths that lurk beneath the surface of a personality. Get ready to be stunned, both by the unmistakable genius of the writing and by an ending that you won't see coming from even 20 pages away. As seen on Ellen on Seven.
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